Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

by Malcolm Gladwell | Nonfiction |
ISBN: 0141014598 Global Overview for this book
Registered by wingmiketrollwing on 1/31/2007
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Journal Entry 1 by wingmiketrollwing on Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Gladwell also wrote The Tipping Point. Both books are original and stimulating.

Blink examines the snap judgements and split-second decisions people make all the time. An elaborate art forgery was exposed because a specialist art expert "knew" in the first two seconds that an allegedly 6th Century Greek marble sculpture was a fake. Other more general experts relied on masses of data, including chemical analysis of the marble, to draw the opposite conclusion. But further analysis showed the hunch was right.

Gladwell presents the concept of "thin-slicing", the idea that we make judgements based on tiny but crucial snippets of data. He meets psychologists with a startling success rate in predicting the success or failure of relationships, based merely on a few minutes observation of couples talking about their pets. The psychologists pick up little clues in the facial and body language that reveal underlying emotions far better than what the people *say*.

Similarly, psychological experiments using a solitaire card game showed that subjects realised how the decks were stacked (their sweat glands became more active) long before they had consciously figured it out. Sub-conscious mind plays a big part in how we function. Thus an experienced firefighter had a sudden hunch to clear his team out of a burning building. The building then collapsed. Later it was possible to rationalize his complex thought process, only at the time none of it was conscious.

In other words, we continually "thin-slice". We simply have to; we don't have time to sit and ponder. And often this process is just as reliable as lengthy fact-gathering and analysis. This is not to say that thin-slicing instinct always works correctly. Gladwell describes in detail a police shooting of a man in the Bronx who looked like an armed burglar, but turned out to be the tenant stepping outside for some midnight air. The police reaction was an aggregation of false hunches.

Faulty thin-slicing may also express itself as prejudice. Disturbingly, even black people were found to have a more positive image of a white face than a black face, because that is the social baggage we grow up with. Gladwell describes a series of interesting experiments revealing the role of such prejudice in forming our snap judgements. A cop is more likely to shoot if the face is dark.

A real life experiment also occurred in the world of classical music, when the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra decided to run blind auditions, with the performers behind a screen. They did this simply because one of the applicants was related to a member of the orchestra.

The winner of the trombone place turned out to be a woman! The male chauvinist director was horrified and rejected her in spite of his own outburst (when hearing her play) that she was the obvious choice, the rest could go home! She sued and won- in fact she had to sue repeatedly, because the director was a complete arsehole. This event helped change the composition of hitherto white male-dominated orchestras around the world.

As with The Tipping Point, Gladwell presents wonderful ideas and original material. Read him for that alone. Still, as a writer he's far from perfect- I don't like his style! He often assumes the adulatory manner of a fashion magazine or pop fanzene feature writer. He primes his reader heavily with the message "This guy is so cool!" You know right off who you're supposed to love, because Gladwell gives you a page of irrelevant detail about their personal appearance and hippie youth.

His books read like a collage of feature articles- and that's probably what they are! This may get him published, but it's lazy. Moreover, he's selling himself short. You feel you've just spent an entertaining evening on a barstool listening to marvellous anecdotes. But Gladwell's ideas deserve serious attention. Alas, he himself devotes little time to summation, to the implications for commerce, education and public attitudes. But read him anyway!


Journal Entry 2 by Ladkyis from Newport, Wales United Kingdom on Tuesday, May 22, 2007
received in the post as a RABCK thankyou miketrollstigen

Journal Entry 3 by Ladkyis from Newport, Wales United Kingdom on Monday, May 28, 2007
received as a RABCK - thank you

Journal Entry 4 by Ladkyis at County Hall, Croesyceiliog in Cwmbran, Wales United Kingdom on Saturday, June 9, 2007

Released 16 yrs ago (6/9/2007 UTC) at County Hall, Croesyceiliog in Cwmbran, Wales United Kingdom

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Upstairs on the balcony of the main hall

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